'Bridge of Spies' Team Tackling Walter Cronkite Vietnam Movie

'Spies' screenwriter Matt Charman has sold a pitch to Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners, centering on the legendary news anchor's influence on the Vietnam War.

Matt Charman, Steven Spielberg and Marc Platt — the writer-director-producer team behind last year's Oscar contender Bridge of Spies — are moving from the Cold War to the Vietnam War.

Charman has sold a pitch to Spielberg's Amblin Partners for a film centering on legendary CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite's time reporting on Vietnam and the role that he played in the proxy war.

Cronkite was already America's most trusted news anchor when he traveled to Vietnam in 1968 to cover the aftermath of the Tet Offensive and, upon his return, very publicly denounced America's involvement in the Cold War-era proxy war, shifting public sentiment about the conflict. After Cronkite's report, President Lyndon B. Johnson was rumored to have said, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America."

Platt is attached to produce the project, as are Charman and Spielberg. It is unclear at this early stage whether Spielberg would direct.

The filmmaker already has a busy dance card: Spielberg is readying the release of the Roald Dahl adaptation BFG, due out July 1, then will move on to helm the video game adaptation Ready Player One. He has signaled that one of his priorities is to direct the period drama The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara and is committed to getting back behind the camera to direct Harrison Ford in the fifth Indiana Jones installment.